Quarantine Q/A: COLLEEN JENNINGS-ROGGENSACK

Colleen Jennings-Roggensack

by Gil Benbrook

Our series of "Quarantine" interviews, which focus on individuals involved in the Phoenix theatre community and their reaction to Arizona's stay at home mandate, continues today with a conversation with Colleen Jennings-Roggensack, the ASU VP for Cultural Affairs and Executive Director of ASU Gammage.

COVID-19 has affected us all in many ways. The theatre community has been harshly impacted with show closures and postponements. We hope this series of daily interviews will be a way to provide some personal insight to what people are doing during this period of time while highlighting familiar individuals from the theatre community in town.

Was there a show you were in or involved with or preparing for when the stay at home order started?

Jennings-Roggensack: "Once on This Island was our last show. We were lucky to be done with that before everything closed down mid-March. We are also fortunate that our very well sold engagement of Mean Girls was able to be moved to September. Unfortunately, Come from Away and The Lion King have been cancelled. Our sights now are on the upcoming fall season and working on a reopening plan."

How have you been personally impacted by our current situation?

"It has changed my life a lot. This is a business of relationships, so I still have to remain in high-touch with many people in Arizona and my contacts in New York. 

I very seldom have a day where it’s like 'I wonder what I’m doing today!' Instead, I’m squeezing this in, I’m squeezing that in. We have this brilliant, amazing staff that is working so hard, and it can be hard to work this way. We work hard already — seven days a week, we work holidays — but this work is hard work. I sit on the Labor, Government Relations, Intra Industry, Board of Governors and Executive Committee for The Broadway League in New York, and we do labor negotiations via Zoom. Sometimes they’re long meetings. Sometimes, you’re sitting in a chair, and you never leave. All the sudden, I’ll realize I didn’t have lunch because we’re in a three-hour meeting with New York. So, even though I’m at home and the refrigerator is there, I’m here."

How has your daily routine changed?

"Actually, I worked at the office for a while. This is only my third week of working at home. I wanted to stay working at the office as long as possible and of course, practice social distancing. 

My daily routine has also changed by more Zoom meetings. ASU President Michael Crow put together a series of strategic and tactical task forces, and I was on the COVID-19 task force that looked at tactical matters. We met every day through Zoom for 77 days. Every day!

Now, we’re just meeting at the end of the week. On top of that, we had two CDC meetings. So, I had five days of those meetings, two days of CDC meetings, and now I am on the president’s ASU reopening committee, and we’re looking at how we reopen the University. So, I am in Zoom land.  "

ASU Gammage
photo by Tim Trumble

What do you feel will be different when theater restarts?

"The big differences for theaters will be cleaning protocols in place. It will definitely be a change from what we have done in the past. We have to be very cautious and attentive to patrons and actors - and their well-being. 

One of the other things we have discussed with the producers and the creative teams is what kinds of things are people interested in seeing as we come back into this world? Are people only going to be interested in feel-good? Are people at home eating comfort food? My belief is there will be some who will want things that you can go together as a family, but there will also be people who will say I want to see, say, To Kill a Mockingbird — a work that is so relevant to today. I believe the taste will be far and wide. People will still have a wide range of taste, so theater will still have a wide range of taste. 

One other thing, in our Broadway League meetings, which includes producers, theater owners, presenters, general managers across the country and in New York, everyone thinks the road will open before Broadway because we are flexible and we are nimble. So, the first theater that we will see will be on the road.   

The word of the year is FLUID. 

Our goal is to be smart, innovative, nimble and FLUID. "

When do you think that’ll happen?

"Not so much as the 'when' – it’s really about the 'how.' It’s about fluidity and flexibility. We are still learning and preparing for what it will look like. 

I would love, love, love, LOVE, to see Broadway in New York open in the fall. "

Any new hobbies you’ve taken on?

"Well, I’ve learned to become a beekeeper. My husband and I went from no bees to three hives. Actually, one of the hives just killed their queen so that’s not good. 

We just reordered queens and will get those in soon. Our friends in Tempe called us to say that in the back of their parking lot, they had a swarm of bees and they said, “Can you come?” So, we dawned our beekeeping skills, brought our portable hive — designed by an ASU professor — and went out there with the smoke and the brushing of the bees. Then my husband created this invention so we could gently vacuum them and take their hives away. 

Then, we got a call from Neil Giuliano, our former mayor, Sun Devil and head of the Phoenix Leadership group. He said, 'Colleen, I think there’s a hive underground in my backyard. Can you and Kurt come over?' But we don’t believe theye're bees, we think they’re hornets. So, that’s my new-hobby pandemic story!"

What have you been doing to stay creative during this time?

"In addition to beekeeping, I’ve been reading a lot. I’ve been reading this interesting book called Severance by Ling Ma. It’s about a mythical time — but let me tell you, this is the virus. My daughter sent it to me. 

Also, this is so me, I watched every pandemic movie I could find. I watched Contagion, I watched Outbreak. Until I finally had to stop myself and say, 'no this maybe isn’t the best thing right now.' "

Any binge tv shows you’ve watched?

"I finally finished all of Claire Dane’s Homeland, and if you haven’t watched it, she is an incredible actress. I also watched Billions.

The prevailing thing in all of the things I have watched is New York. My husband says, 'You do miss New York. One time I was looking at you and you were crying, and there wasn’t anything sad on the screen!' I went, 'Look, it’s just down the street from Broadway!' Whatever had New York in it, I was binging it. "

How has this experience changed you?

"It has taught me not to take anything for granted … and I mean everything. Everything from having a great and supportive spouse, to how great our health is. One of the reasons I am at home is because he begged me to stop going to the office. It was worrying him so much. It continues to underscore how fortunate we are as a people. How fortunate we are to work, to think through this and to be on the frontline of bringing back life. That has changed me. 

I have always thought that theater has changed me, I have always thought what artists say makes a difference in our lives. That part hasn’t changed, what has changed, is my understanding of how fragile their existence is. 

For example, Lemon Andersen, our artist-in-residence, is working through his commercial life while also buying groceries to deliver to artists that cannot buy groceries. He and his wife drive around Brooklyn dropping off boxes of food every week. I think the goodness and support from artist to artist is so important. But we forget about the people who support artists — the agents, managers, producers — because they aren’t getting anything. They only get paid when artists are working. That ecosystem is very fragile."

What is the one thing you’re most looking forward to not that the stay at home order has been lifted and some businesses have started to reopen?

"Professionally, I can’t wait to get back into the theater and have a full house. Personally, I am looking forward to being able to hug someone. That is one of the tenants of who we are. We never shake hands; we theater people are huggers! 

We are about the feeling, and as much as we are tactile, we are emotional. One thing my husband said to me that the science community does not do is we sit around a table and share our failures and our ideas. We’re like, 'Let me tell you about this time I really screwed up, or let me tell you about this really great idea.' We are sharers, we want everyone to know our ideas. "